...the Name of Science: A detailed Comparison Between Milgram and Zimbardo’s Internationally Renowned Attempts at Ethics in Social Science Experiments David Baxter Park University SO220 Ethical Issues in Social Science Kris Reichart-Anderson 2 October 2011 Abstract For years many experiments have been scrutinized for their ineffective use or lack of establishment of ethical principles within their research. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s Obedience experiment were ridiculed for the lack of ethics involved. Although these experiments caused unnecessary harm to their subjects they also acted as the foundation for the establishment of the Belmont Report, which in itself, would change research forever. Ethics in the Name of Science Two very controversial experiments have been dissected a thousand times over by some of social science’s most amazing minds as well as the academic populous worldwide. Though the Milgram experiment of 1962 and the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 were entirely different, they both shared the groundbreaking task of identifying the affects of “Obedience to Authority” (Milgram, 1974). Both social scientists believe they had identified the possible risks but fell short in their attempt to alleviate any ethical repercussions. This paper will address the attempts made to ensure moral and ethical studies were accomplished as well as identify where both experiments had major flaws in their plans to ensure no physical...
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...Thinking Questions Zimbardo and Milgram Excelsior College SOC 101- Introduction to Sociology Module 2 - Assignment By: Tammy S. Wood Due Date: Sunday March 13, 2016 Professor: Charles Seagle Zimbardo and Milgram Experiments In this critical thinking assignment questions will be addressed that pertain to the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram Experiment. The Milgram experiment participants were selected after responding to an advertisement to take part in a study at Yale University. The participants drew lots to find out who would be the "learner" and who would be the "teacher". Electrodes were placed on the learner and the teacher would ask questions, if question was answered incorrectly the learner would receive an electric shock. With each wrong answered the "learner" would receive a higher volt of shock("Milgram Experiment (Darren Brown),"n.d.). The Stanford Prison experiment participants were recruited by an advertisement placed in the newspaper offering male college students fifteen dollars a day to participate in a study of psychology of imprisonment. Participants were divided up into groups of two one group being the guards and the other group being the prisoners("Zimbardo shows how most evil comes from hierarachy," n.d.). The Stanford Prison experiment purpose was to understand the development of norms and the effects of positions, social expectations, and labels that are endured in a prison environment. Yes, this experiment is one that would...
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...1960s, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram did a famous research study called the obedience study. It showed that people have a strong tendency to comply with authority figures. Milgram’s Obedience Study Milgram told his forty male volunteer research subjects that they were participating in a study about the effects of punishment on learning. He assigned each of the subjects to the role of teacher. Each subject was told that his task was to help another subject like himself learn a list of word pairs. Each time the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to give the learner an electric shock by flipping a switch. The teacher was told to increase the shock level each time the learner made a mistake, until a dangerous shock level was reached. Throughout the course of the experiment, the experimenter firmly commanded the teachers to follow the instructions they had been given. In reality, the learner was not an experiment subject but Milgram’s accomplice, and he never actually received an electric shock. However, he pretended to be in pain when shocks were administered. Prior to the study, forty psychiatrists that Milgram consulted told him that fewer than 1 percent of subjects would administer what they thought were dangerous shocks to the learner. However, Milgram found that two-thirds of the teachers did administer even the highest level of shock, despite believing that the learner was suffering great pain and distress. Milgram believed that the teachers had acted...
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...funded a what they called, “prison experiment” in 1971, with a goal of finding that the prison environment produces aggressive attitudes? Zimbardo conducted this experiment in the basement of the Psychology department at Stanford University. He took regular everyday college students like you and I made some prisoners and some guards, locked them up in a very small area, and evaluated their behaviors. The question is, how were the guards and the prisoners distinguished between? Now this is where the word evil comes in. In order to make the environment a real “evil” environment the guards wore hats and badges while the prisoners wore nothing but frowsy dresses. This was Zimbardo’s bright idea of an evil environment. So, does perception come into play? Does what each person perceives as evil environments make for a trustworthy study, setting out to support such a claim? Ultimately, did Zimbardo adequately reconstruct a fair representation of a true prison setting or did Zimbardo exaggerate that too? Well, according to two documentary professionals, this study did support that evil environments produces evil behaviors stated not only by Ratnesar’s, but also by Sheere. The funding corporations were kept a secret from the general public for more than 20 years. Just recently on July 4, 2011 a man named Michael Barker put the secret out. He wrote about it in a three part article written on the subject that the Stanford Prison Experiment was flawed in many ways. Why would...
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...M3. Explain why conformity and obedience are important in the public services, with reference to research studies. Conformity and obedience are forms of social influence which strongly affect our behaviour is social situations, from following fashions and unwritten social norms which organise our behaviour, to committing immoral acts because we are commanded to by someone who appears to be in a position of authority. This essay looks at the similarities and differences between the three, looking specifically at the factors that influence each two. Conformity within a group entails members changing their attitudes and beliefs in order to match those of others within the group. Those that conform tend to be obedient and compliant. In order to conform, the group member must attribute someone as having the legitimacy and credibility to lead or influence the group's behaviour. Without this "leader", conformity toward the group's goals will be less prevalent. If a member of the group fails to conform to the groups needs, he/she would lose credibility with the rest of the group. Conformity is a change in an individuals behaviour according to certain accepted standards within society as well as the influence of others whether this be a real or imaginary influence. There are 2 key concepts of conformity, acceptance or compliance. People plan to join a specific public service because they want to belong to that team because they may like the sentiments of the service etc. Hence...
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...The Stanford Prison experiment was quite interesting to watch. I don't quite get the necessity of this experiment. Particularly when we have already looked up the ethical aspects of sociologists and their studies. I didn’t think these were necessary studies but I guess is Zimbardo really was that interested in how power may have corrupted normal people and how normal people would react when exposed to it. I think it went a little bit too far when you look at the results and findings. But that is my personal opinion. Addressing the first question if it went too far. I think even though it ended in half the time it was supposed to run, it did go too far in a few aspects. In the extended documentary that I reviewed a total of four prisoners left in the first five days due to the emotional strains that were put on them specifically by one or two guards that took their roles a bit too seriously in my opinion. Some people will by nature abuse their authority whenever they can or it pleases them instead of only using it when it’s necessary. That I believe is human common sense but as discussed in Chapter 5, common sense shouldn't play a role in studies, however, I believe that the theory or notion that power does corrupt some people is common sense. If not common sense, definitely common knowledge. Some people do not know what to do properly with authority. I think Zimbardo should have stopped his experiment immediately after the first prisoner, #8612 began showing signs...
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...each individual plays a crucial role in functioning everyday life. Stanley Milgram’s, “The Perlis of Obedience” and Philip Zimbardo’s, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” both show when humans are given a specific role; they will compete to meet the expectations given to them by their authoritative figure. In the movie, A Few Good Men, both Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments simplified the actions shown by the soldiers. The movie A Few Good Men relates to the experiments by exemplifying that the expectations of one’s role, leads to obedience of authority. In “The Perlis of Obedience,” Milgram was interested to see how far...
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...are so prevalent in society. Are all people capable of committing crimes of obedience given the right situation? Is there a certain disposition or combination of personality traits that leads to crimes of obedience? Situations are unique and dispositions vary; attempting to distinguish what causes these occurrences is a complex task that has been the subject of numerous studies, yet no concrete answers are found. Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments ignited the flame of a subject that, instead of diminishing over time and becoming obsolete as a result of improved methods and new ideologies, has remained at the forefront of social and behavioral psychology. Modern research faces the critical challenge of attempting to study obedience under much more restrictive guidelines than previous studies; the results that are produced can only hope to shed light on one component of obedience and use other studies to synthesize a more complete explanation. The predecessor to all of this modern research was the Milgram obedience experiment and all of its variations. It has remained a fixture of social psychology for so long for several reasons: the enormity of the results (65% of a normal population of American men is willing to administer dangerous shocks to innocent learners), its magnitude (over 1000 people tested in 18 variations), its clarity in defining how situation influences the obedience of participants, and the questions it raised about ethics in experimental methods...
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...Year: 1957 Reference: Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P.G. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97. “Suppose you had kids who were normally healthy, psychologically and physically, and they knew they would be going into a prison-like environment and that some of their civil rights would be sacrificed. Would those good people, put in that bad, evil place – would their goodness triumph?” Zimbargo Cognitive dissonance is the unconfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a fundamental cognitive drive to reduce this dissonance by modifying an existing belief, or rejecting one of the contradictory ideas. In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set out to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. Zambardo, a former classmate of Stanley Milgram (Obedience experiment) was interested in expanding upon Milgram’s research. He wanted to further investigate the impact of situational variables on human behavior. That led Zimbardo to explore the psychological effect of becoming a prison guard or prisoner. The experiment took place in Stanford University, California, and there was 24 male participants. The participants we predominantly white and middle-class. There were originally 70 volunteers, but Zimbardo picked the 24 “most psychologically stable and...
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...In this experiment, an individual was directed by a scientist to shock a man, with each shock more powerful than the last, whenever he got a question wrong. Scientists predicted that only 1% of the volunteers would shock an individual to the highest amount of voltage, but surprisingly, approximately “65% of very typical people will give electric shocks to someone in another room if they are told to do so by an experimenter in a lab coat,” (Aron 13). One of the volunteers continued to shock the man, but finally stopped after at least 300 volts was reached. This experiment reflects how an individual can believe that their actions are justified, and how power affects the mindset and actions of individuals. However, once the volunteer’s guilty conscience reached its limit, the volunteer put a stop to shocking the other man and went against the authoritative figure’s directions. This experiment has aspects that support the theory of how people blindly obey an authority figure; individuals that practice baleful beliefs such as communism have become prominent figures due to the acquired blind support from others, even though the ideas that they assume have unappealing...
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...The experiment[edit] Milgram Experiment advertisement Three individuals were involved: the one running the experiment, the subject of the experiment (a volunteer), and a confederate pretending to be a volunteer. These three people fill three distinct roles: the Experimenter (an authoritative role), the professor (a role intended to obey the orders of the Experimenter), and the Learner (the recipient of stimulus from the Teacher). The subject and the actor both drew slips of paper to determine their roles, but unknown to the subject, both slips said "teacher". The actor would always claim to have drawn the slip that read "learner", thus guaranteeing that the subject would always be the "teacher". At this point, the "teacher" and "learner" were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition.[1] The "teacher" was given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to...
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...ethical implications on psychological research of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted at Stanford University in 1971. Ethics will be defined and the concept of risk/benefit ratio will be discussed. The Stanford Prison Experiment will be described. Finally, the impact of the Stanford Prison Experiment on psychological research will be evaluated. Ethics Defined Ethics is concerned with the principles of right conduct. In the philosophical use, ethics is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the study of morals and how it is that moral decisions are made. Ethics also has a stricter use when dealing with the rules or standards that govern conduct and right behavior (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2000). Risk/Benefit Ratio Ethical approaches to research take into account the risk/benefit ratio. This simply means that the amount of benefit that comes from a study or research clearly outweighs any adverse risks to the subjects involved in the study or research. A study or research is only considered to be ethical if there is favorable risk benefit ratio (Wikipedia, 2008). Background on the Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment was created by Professor Philip Zimbardo who led a team of researchers at Stanford University in 1971. The study was designed to observe and study the human responses to captivity by both the inmates and the authority figures. In order to carry out the experiment, a mock prison was created in the basement of the Stanford psychology...
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...authoritative positions, gives them the impression that they can do what they please because they are above the law. This happens way too often and can cause a lot of issues within the justice system. A psychology professor from Yale University, Stanley Milgram conducted a study that demonstrated the power that is given to a person and how they decide to use it (Gross, 22). The study that was conducted by Milgram involved participants placed randomly in two groups of “teachers” and “learners”. Participants were told the experiment was studying memory, but the study was actually proving that violent behavior is an ordinary occurrence in human behavior. Participants in the “teacher” group were given the power of sending an electric shock to the “learners” who were answering questions to do with memory (Gross, 22). This study was falsely given because there was actually no electric shock sent to the “learners”. The experimenters would play a recording of shouts simulating pain of receiving shocks due to answering memory questions wrong. One example in the experiment that proved the theory of having violent behavior was when a “learner” explained that they had a heart problem and they did not want to proceed with the experiment. When this happened the experimenter told the “teacher” to press the button because they would not learn if they did not receive the...
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...Stanford Prison Experiment PSYCH/620 May 31, 2015 Dr. Al Clark Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment Dr. Phillip Zimbardo of Stanford University led a team of researchers to conduct a social experiment on the effects of imposed social roles in the penal system. Internal dispositions changed to adapt to the confinement of the prison. The behavior observed of the participants was morally repugnant and apprehensible in response to role of authority. Participants assigned to a prisoner role broke down in response to captivity. The study focused on behavioral attributes that attributed sadistic behavior to the prison environment opposed to an innate tendency towards a cruel personality (Zimbardo, 2007). The impact of Dr. Zimbardo’s study on social psychology Dr. Zimbardo’s classic psychological study relating to the psychological effects of the prisoner and prison guard relationship was momentous to social psychology. The study was influential to social psychology in the way that we were able to understand the circumstances that enable a normal, caring individual to carryout sadistic acts. Zimbardo’s prison experiment was a prison simulation based on Milgram’s research on obedience to authority. The study confirmed notions on how situations could completely corrupt human behavior (Stanley, 2006). Relevance of the Study in Relation to Contemporary World Issues The experiment influenced the sensitivity...
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...The Zimbardo Prison Experiment Ryan Iden IPFW The Zimbardo Prison Experiment Professor Philip Zimbardo was a professor at Stanford University and he wanted to do an experiment on how students “inmates” would react to the power of the guards and how they would respond to being a prisoner for 14 days. This prison was a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University and the experiment only lasted 6 days because the voluntary students started to get stressed out and feeling demoralized by the guards. The guards were starting to act aggressive and abusive to the students. The guards would strip them of their clothes, yell at them and make them submit to their authority. The guards and the inmates were actually starting to act as though they were in prison. This experiment to me is not unethical. The students volunteered and they also knew that this was just an experiment. I do agree that some of the guard’s motives were a little too extreme for the experiment, but al-in all the students knew what they were getting into. Some people would say that this is to extreme putting these students through all the stress and torment just for an experiment. If this was real I would say yes that this is unethical. The issue that was the most problematic to was the fact that the professor actually wanted to do this experiment and did not stop the guards from treating the students the way they did. When the prisoners started to get stressed out they should have stopped the experiment...
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